"Sir Edward Watkin, ladies and
gentlemen, I believe there is no fixed programme of proceedings for the present
day beyond that which has just been accomplished. Still, I feel it to be a
matter of absolute necessity that a few words should be said upon an occasion
so remarkable and, of course, my very first duty, as you will all agree, is to
connect this remarkable occasion with the name of Sir Edward Watkin
(Cheers). Sir Edward Watkin makes it
a boast that he draws his extraction from Wales, and if he draws his extraction
from Wales, no man, I will venture to say, has ever rendered a more substantial
and more effective Service to his country than he has done by promoting and
procuring the erection of this bridge. (Hear,
Hear)

The skill of the engineer, the
energy of the contractor, the limited time in which the work has been executed;
the remarkable, and I will say splendid, application of mechanical science on
which the whole thing turns - all of these are remarkable; all of them worthy
of commemoration; but what appears to me to be a singular irony, and to us a
very agreeable irony of fortune, ladies and gentlemen, is this: We belong on
the western side of the country. From the railways on the western side of the
country we have derived, for the purpose of establishing a communication of
Wales with Lancashire and the Mersey, we have derived unhappily, no assistance.
(Hear, hear) Not only have we
derived no assistance, but we have derived a great deal of opposition and
resistance (Hear, hear) which the
united forces of Wales and all our ardent desires never would have been able to
overcome if there had not arrived here from the extreme east of the island the
chairman of a railway company which derives its name from the most eastern
county, namely, the county of Lincolnshire.
(Cheers) It is from Lincolnshire
that the light of our deliverance has shone -
(Laughter) -and all that energy and
skill that are worthy of the British name and worthy of the experience and fame
that Sir Edward Watkin has obtained in all matters connected with railways -
from thence has come the execution of this work, done in a manner hardly less
remarkable than the work itself. This is a great day for Hawarden and its
neighbourhood - (Hear, hear) - it is
a great day for all Wales - (Hear,
hear) - it is a great day for all the northern districts
of Wales, with its enormous mineral production wanting the cheapest and most
direct access to the great markets, and to such a point of export as the
Mersey. (Hear, hear) It is a great
day for the interior of Wales - for all that lies beyond Wrexham, for those
struggling railways which have been hitherto confined and condemned to making
only local use of their resources, but which are now going to become part of
the great system of the country.
(Cheers) All this we owe to our
friends of the Manchester. Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway Company, and,
above all, to the energy of our friend Sir Edward Watkin.
(Cheers) And if a cheer were a very
reward, I think you might give three times three, and three times three times
three cheers for Sir Edward Watkin in acknowledgment of his great exertions and
of the splendid consummation to which they have now led."
(Loud cheers)